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Tomorrow, the HLS Student Association for Law and Mind Sciences (SALMS) is hosting a talk, “What Makes for a Great Team?,” by Harvard University professor Richard Hackman in Austin East, from 12:00 – 1:00.

Professor Hackman has studied the secrets of effective teams ranging from airplane cockpit crews to musical ensembles. His talk on Monday will identify conditions that increase the likelihood of creating teamwork “magic.” As always, there will be burritos.

For a brief introduction to Professor Hackman’s recent research on teamwork, check out this Harvard Business Review article on “sand dune teams.”

Legal scholars have long been borrowing from economists to explain legal rules and doctrine. Examining the law through the lens of social psychological research is a more novel approach, one which will be front and center at the fifth annual Conference on Law and Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School. On Feb. 26 in Austin North, academics and students will discuss the latest research on the psychological causes and consequences of social inequality and its application to law and policy.

The conference, entitled “The Psychology of Inequality,” is an all-day event sponsored by the Project on Law and Mind Sciences (PLMS) and will feature four panels comprised of mostly mind scientists and several legal scholars.

“The larger ambition of the conference is to bring research of social scientists, particularly mind scientists, who are thinking about inequality to a legal audience,” said Prof. Jon Hanson, the director of PLMS.

Hanson has spearheaded planning for the conference, aided by his assistant, Carol Igoe, and about 30 law students, many of whom are part of the Student Association for Law and Mind Sciences (SALMS), which was formed in Fall 2009. Part of the mission of the conference is to facilitate relationships between mind scientists and legal scholars and students interested in social science research – a cross-section of the legal community that is expanding, Hanson said.

“There is a growing sense that we are not going to understand our problems or how to solve them until we better understand ourselves,” he said. “Much legal theory in the late 20th century assumed that people are rational actors, and that our problems will be solved when the law gets out of the way of individuals pursuing their own preferences. Those assumptions are giving way to a sense that we’re not who we’ve imagined ourselves to be and that our problems are partially a consequence of that misunderstanding.”

SALMS President Matty McFeely ‘12 said it makes sense for law students to think about the implications of social psychological research as they embark upon their legal careers.

“The insights into human nature that are provided by psychologists are crucial for people who are going to go on to be future lawyers and policymakers, so they can make laws and judgments that are in the best interest of the people they are going to serve,” McFeely said.

Research about inequality is relevant to almost every legal issue – even those that arise in first-year courses like Torts, Contracts, and Criminal Law, “Inequality and concerns about inequality are fundamental to the law,” Hanson said. “I expect we will learn a lot at the conference about why people understand equality the way we do, why it matters.”

More than two decades of research in the health sciences has shown that social status affects health. Studies in humans and non-human primates demonstrate that individuals lower on the social hierarchy end up with shorter, sicker lives. In this presentation I will review the major theories put forward to explain the association between social status and health. For simplicity, I will use income as the indicator of social status. The major theories are: a) the absolute income hypothesis, b) the relative income hypothesis, and c) the relative rank hypothesis. I will discuss empirical evidence for each theory.

This presentation will discuss stress and resilience as important mechanisms by which social disparities influence health. It will consider how being stressed or resilient is shaped by social environment, and whether these processes influence health.

I will discuss recent research indicating that even young children (aged 3-5 years), have an understanding of social inequality. In my lab and others, researchers are finding astounding evidence that children routinely notice social inequality, they favor individuals and groups who are high in social status, and they often behave in ways that perpetuate inequalities between individuals and groups. I will describe these results, their implications, and will describe other behaviors children engage in that might offset some of these biases to uphold or perpetuate the status quo.

Social Dominance Theory (SDT) begins with the basic observation that group-based social hierarchy is a ubiquitous and stable feature of human social organization, and provides a general framework for understanding the persistence of inequality. In this talk, I will provide a brief overview of SDT, and focus on new research documenting how the biased perception of biracials may serve a hierarchy-enhancing function.

I will present a new perspective on stereotyping and discrimination, based on experimental and correlational findings, that helps to integrate the vast research literature on this topic and provides a unifying conceptual framework. Stereotypes cohere into fundamental dimensions of warmth and competence that combine to create specific patterns of emotion and behaviors toward members of various social groups. These stereotype dimensions and the distinct forms of discrimination they foster apply to a wide range of groups, including mothers, ethnic minorities, older people, and people of different nationalities. In contrast to past theories that assumed stereotypes of women, minorities, and foreigners are predominately negative and hostile, these findings show how many groups are stereotyped ambivalently – as competent but cold or as warm but incompetent. These ambivalent stereotypes create more complex, but predictable patterns of discrimination. Knowing which form of ambivalence a group faces can help us to better understand when and how stereotypes are likely to be applied and, therefore, where to concentrate our efforts to combat discrimination.

According to a huge body of literature within social, personality, and organizational psychology, people are motivated to believe that their social worlds operate fairly — that is, that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Indeed, even people most at risk for unfair treatment — that is, members of socially disadvantaged groups, such as those low in SES and minority group members — often believe that the world largely operates in a fair and legitimate manner. Are there any benefits to believing that an obviously unfair world is reasonably fair? For those who typically perpetrate or benefit from injustice — members of advantaged groups — the benefits of such beliefs are easy to understand.However, for those who typically suffer from injustice the benefits of believing in societal fairness are less obvious. This raises an intriguing question: What are specific functions, if any, that these beliefs serve for members of disadvantaged groups? In the current research, we hypothesize that the belief in societal fairness offers a specific self-regulatory benefit for members of socially disadvantaged groups, allowing them to more confidently commit to long-term goals. Five studies support this hypotheses, indicating that members of disadvantaged groups are more likely than members of advantaged social groups to calibrate their pursuit of long-term goals to their beliefs about societal fairness.

Theories of legitimization typically posit that individuals engage in a process of “assortative endorsement,” seeking out and embracing ideologies that match their intergroup motivations. Thus, individuals high in Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) tend to gravitate toward ideologies that enhance levels of intergroup inequality; those low in SDO, in contrast, tend to embrace hierarchy-attenuating ideologies. Whereas assortative endorsement assumes that ideological content is fixed, I propose that many ideologies are highly “malleable.” Although certain features of malleable ideologies remain constant and consensual, other aspects of their meaning are actively construed to meet particular intergroup agendas. I discuss several malleable ideologies, including colorblindness, diversity, and patriotism. Finally, I address implications of the present perspective for understanding sophisticated forms of hierarchy-enhancement, ideological cooptation, and the manner in which individuals compete over the meanings of crucial ideologies.

System justification theory posits that beliefs that the system is legitimate can serve epistemic and existential needs to manage uncertainty and threat. Members of advantaged and disadvantaged social groups, however, differ in their levels of conflict between needs to feel good about the system and needs to feel good about the group and the self. I propose that differential levels of conflict among high vs. low status group members can lead to different system-justifying beliefs. Specifically, I predicted that high status group members will tend to endorse system-serving beliefs that assume controllability on the part of the self and others (e.g., personal responsibility attributions). Low status group members, by contrast, will instead justify inequality by viewing it as a reflection of the natural order of things. That is, when needs to justify inequality are high, high status group members enhance themselves (and derogate others) on controllable actions, whereas low status group members will derogate themselves (and enhance others) on innate competence. I tested these propositions in the context of racial and gender inequality. Results from five studies converge to support my predictions. By removing the locus of control from the self, group, and system, naturalistic rationalizations of the status quo can serve to reduce the conflicts between ego-, group-, and system-justifying needs.

Recent research from embodied cognition provides evidence that the body is involved in the constitution of the mind. In this talk, I will discuss current experimental work examining how people’s intuitions about fairness and justice may be linked to sensorimotor experiences of balance, evenness, and symmetry. Although the connection is reflected in many of our legal structures and processes, I suggest that it may be deeply problematic.

A great deal of everyday policy commentary and legal-academic debate seems to turn on conflicting attitudes toward markets and regulation. But where do those attitudes come from? Reason, logic, and experience? Based on research I’ve been doing with Mark Yeboah for the last several years, my talk will take up that question and provide evidence suggesting that nonconscious motives — including the desire to assuage the dissonance created by salient inequalities — play a causal role in shaping policy attitudes.

The symposium is being held at Case Western University Law School, and is funded in part by the Arthur W. Fiske Memorial Lectureship Fund. It it co-sponsored by: Center for Professional Ethics, Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Institute for Global Security Law & Policy, Law-Medicine Center, and Center for Social Justice.

The symposium website summarizes the focus of the conference this way:

There has always been some tension between the ethical, legal, and professional obligations of professionals and the requirements of military service. This tension has been increased by the War on Terror. Physicians, mental health professionals, lawyers, and law enforcement/corrections officers serving in the military have been placed in situations in which their professional ethics, obligations, and legal duties may contradict military necessity or directives, or even place the role of professional in direct conflict with the role of military personnel.

As the management of armed conflict, the law of war, and the professionalization of the military has increased, this tension has similarly increased. Military professionals have been asked to bring their expertise, skills, and professional talents to the prosecution of military action not just as military personnel but as doctors, mental health professionals, lawyers, and law enforcement/corrections officers. Doctors and mental health professionals are charged with supervising and controlling interrogations, lawyers are asked to provide legal opinions and advise on the treatment of prisoners, and law enforcement and corrections officers must guard and control prisoners. While performing these duties military necessity can impose conflicting duties and concerns. The need for information, validation, or security may require different loyalties and focus than the professional duty. The need for information about an upcoming attack that could save the lives of comrades may directly contradict the need for care or treatment of a prisoner.

This symposium brings together professionals, ethicists, theorists and practitioners from medicine, mental health care, the law, law enforcement, and the military to explore these complicated and timely issues in an open and frank discussion.

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You can find more details about the symposium, the participants, and the agenda here.

Panels

Health & Equality

There is a burgeoning awareness that access to health care is an equality issue. With inadequate resources to access basic health services, women around the globe are impaired from functioning at the highest level. At the same time, health disparities perpetuate other disparities, leaving women who lack these resources behind their counterparts elsewhere. Women’s reproductive health needs make this question all the more stark. Our panel brings together leading experts in legal and nonlegal fields, who have a holistic perspective on health that grounds legal answers in community-based approaches.

Equality & Economics

Economic inequality influences people’s choices and shapes their worldviews. As such, it is necessary to continually interrogate the changing role of women in the economy. This panel brings together women who have broken through social and cultural barriers to begin to equalize economic environments. Coming from different fields in the public and private sector, each panelist has a unique perspective on what it means to equalize the workplace, as well as the broader economy.

Equality on Both Sides of the Bench

Women represent a rapidly rising percentage of litigators and judges. However, courtrooms remain one of the least gender-balanced arenas. In this panel, we have brought together leading judges and litigators who have been experience in breaking through inequality on both sides of the bench. We hope that a conversation between litigators and judges will lead to a broad and fruitful discussion about what it means to be a woman in the courtroom, and how we can work to build off of their foundational work to eliminate gender discrimination in courtroom settings.

Equality for Girls

When envisioning the future we want to see, it is imperative to think about how the next generation of women will be educated and nurtured. Continual efforts to eliminate gender discrimination in the schools and on the streets for girls around the world represent the best chance to positively affect the change we wish to see. Our girls panel brings together the women who are doing exactly this: influencing the lives of young women around the globe through legal, social, economic, and cultural means.

On Tuesday, the HLS Student Association for Law and Mind Sciences (SALMS) is hosting a talk by Suffolk Law professor Patrick Shin entitled “Unconscious Bias and the Legal Concept of Discrimination.”

Professor Shin is a professor of law at Suffolk University Law School. He conducts research into the meaning and value of diversity in antidiscrimination law. He has applied psychology to real-world problems of employment discrimination law.

On Monday, the HLS Student Association for Law and Mind Sciences (SALMS) is hosting a talk by Tufts psychology professor Ray Jackendoff entitled “The Natural Logic of Morals and Laws.”

Ray Jackendoff received his Ph.D. in linguistics from MIT in 1969. His research centers around the system of meaning in natural language, how it is related to the human conceptual system, and how it is expressed linguistically. This has led him to a cognitive approach to traditional philosophical issues of inference and reference, embodied in his theory of Conceptual Semantics. In developing this approach, he has worked on the conceptualization of space, on the relationship between language, perception, and consciousness, and, most recently, on the conceptualization of such socially grounded concepts as value, morality, fairness, and obligations. In addition, in exploring how concepts are expressed in language, he has developed new models of the architecture of the human language faculty and its evolution.

Professor Jackendoff will be speaking in Pound 10o from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

This program continues an earlier show (Oct. 25, 2010) that focused on The Lucifer Effect, understanding how good people can turn evil, and centered on the issue of obedience to authority.

The new show builds upon that theme by adding demonstrations of bullying by girls in groups, and the power of group dynamics and social trust as revealed in the recent “Bling Ring” Hollywood thefts. Millions of dollars worth of celebrity jewelry and clothing were stolen by a group of young girls, as described by one guest.

The final component shifts focus to understand how “bad kids” can turn good and even act heroically. A former member of a criminal gang in Los Angeles describes his motives for joining the gang, its illegal activities, being shot at, arrested, and his final transformation. He describes going beyond just quitting the gang to work at preventing others from joining destructive gangs, and helping them escape from gang life. In a dramatic highlight, this young man says, “I am putting my life in danger just being here (on this public show).” His actions, like those of others like him, are heroic because of the high personal costs/risks entailed in engaging in such socially-focused service.

Dr. Phil ends the show with laudatory comments about how such actions are part of what is being investigated and encouraged by the Heroic Imagination Project (HIP), encouraging his audience to visit the web site (here).

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The HIP research team is now investigating the nature of such transformations of the psychology of enmity and violence into the psychology of compassion and heroic action through detailed interviews with dozens of “heroic, former gang members.”

On Tuesday the HLS Student Association for Law and Mind Sciences (SALMS) is hosting a talk by Tufts psychology professor Nalini Ambady entitled “Nonverbal Behavior: Accuracy and Contagion.”

Professor Ambady is a Neubauer Faculty Fellow and professor at Tufts University. Her research focuses on interpersonal perception and communication, particularly in relation to the accuracy of judgments, the influence of personal and social identities on cognition and performance, and the mechanisms of nonverbal and cross-cultural communication. She has received accolades for her research into the ways that people can perceive others’ sexual identity and political affiliation from photos of their faces.

On Tuesday, November 2nd, the HLS Student Association for Law and Mind Sciences (SALMS) and HLS Ethics, Law, and Biotechnology group are hosting a talk by Brooklyn Law School professor Adam Kolber entitled “Freedom of Memory.”

Professor Kolber teaches a variety of subjects at Brooklyn Law School, including bioethics and “law and the brain” courses. He is a respected expert in the field of neuroethics, and is the founder of the Neuroethics & Law Blog. Professor Kolber is frequently quoted in major news publications for his views regarding the ways that legal punishment should be influenced by modern advances in human understanding of the brain’s reactions to punishment.

Professor Kolber will be speaking in Pound 107. Free bagels will be provided!

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On Monday, October 18th, the HLS Student Association for Law and Mind Sciences (SALMS) and the American Constitution Society (ACS) are hosting a talk by Yale professor Dan Kahan entitled “The Laws of Cultural Cognition, and the Cultural Cognition of Law.

Professor Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law at Yale Law School. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Professor Kahan clerked for both for Justice Thurgood Marshall and Judge Harry T. Edwards of the District of Columbia Circuit United States Court of Appeals.

Professor Kahan is well-known for his work in the area of cultural cognition, or the study of how people assess the degree of risk in a given situation based on their culturally engrained concepts of good behavior. He leads the Cultural Cognition Project, which researches the history and impact of this phenomenon along with its mechanistic underpinnings. His work has had a profound impact upon criminal legal scholarship, particularly in relation to his theory that shame-based penalties should be implemented in criminal law.

Professor Kahan will be speaking in Austin North. Lunch will be provided!

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On Tuesday, October 12th, the HLS Student Association for Law and Mind Sciences (SALMS) is hosting a talk by MIT professor Drazen Prelec entitled Neuroeconomics.

Professor Prelec works in the departments of Economics and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. His research and publications have explored the insights that cognitive science can offer into the ways that the human mind makes economic decisions. His influential work has helped to found the nascent field of neuroeconomics.

Professor Drelec will be speaking in Pound 107. Free snacks will be provided!

The American Bar Association Journal is compiling its list of the 100 best legal blogs . . . or, blawgs, as they are referred to in the “biz.”

If you enjoy following the Situationist, consider telling the editors here. As they explain, “Editors make the final decisions about what’s included in the Blawg 100; this isn’t a scenario in which the blawgs that receive the most amici are the ones that make the list.”